Speculative outlines
speculative outlines¶
Most people take notes in a "downward" fashion. They think about a topic or book idea and then flesh out subtopics or chapters, do research on these subtopics or chapters and synthesize their results into formulated ideas.
Speculative outlines is a technique in note taking where you are thinking "upward" while you write. You are always trying to figure out the context within which this note will fit or what this note can be added to. This approach to note-taking allows larger ideas and texts to emerge organically from-the-ground-up rather than trying to force a top down structured approach.
The writing process practically requires a continual adding of ideas to speculative outline MOC's which eventually reach a tipping point and, rather quickly, become a new note in and of themselves (which you then add to another speculative document).